Immigrants who sought her help found trouble instead

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, May 28, 2003

Margarita Noyola in her Wenatchee office. An injunction prevents her from dispensing immigration advice. Noyola denies any wrongdoing.

Margarita Noyola in her Wenatchee office. An injunction prevents her from dispensing immigration advice. Noyola denies any wrongdoing.

Photo: Gilbert W. Arias/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Immigrants who sought her help found trouble instead

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EAST WENATCHEE -- The black vinyl and chrome chairs lined up against walls decorated with flags and a map of the world give Margarita Noyola's office the air of authority.

But the sombreros painted on her office windows and the hand-printed sign promoting Lashes and Mustaches, the barbershop and beauty salon next door, chip away at that image.

So does the notice taped inside the door asking customers to respect a court injunction against her: ... "no me pidan informacion o me hagen preguntas de asuntos de immigration." (Don't ask me for information or questions about immigration matters).

The court order comes too late for more than 2,000 immigrants who flocked to her and paid hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of dollars for legal help navigating the U.S. immigration system.

Many hoped to take advantage of a "10-year law" that they say Noyola told them was the sure route to a work permit and legal, permanent residence.

Few actually qualified for the program. Dozens now may be deported.

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On the strength of a one-day class on immigration law, Noyola took their lives in her hands. Most did not speak English and had not completed the sixth grade. On what her attorney admits was a flawed interpretation of a complex immigration statute, she persuaded them to sign up for voluntary deportation.

Noyola denies taking advantage of her clients.

"I wasn't playing an attorney," Noyola said. "I told them it was totally out of my hands. I was just translating the information and told them they would have to go in front of an immigration judge, and the judge would decide whether they would become residents or be deported. Everyone understood that."

For her work Noyola made a killing. And immigrant advocates say she is not the only one: Immigration consultants from Seattle to Spokane are taking advantage of some of the state's most vulnerable residents.

"It's a widespread problem over here," said Matt Adams, attorney for the Northwest Immigrants' Rights Project in Granger. "There's a lot of money to be made out there."

Receipts from 1998 through 2001 indicate Noyola brought in at least $191,000 for immigration services, and that's with receipts from 474 days missing, according to records from a lawsuit filed against her. About 150 of those customers face deportation, said Victoria Minto, one of the Columbia Legal Services attorneys who filed the suit.

Unqualified or dishonest consultants are able to cash in on the vulnerable with relative immunity in part because of a system that elicits so much fear from immigrants that they are afraid to turn to the law for help -- though they are entitled to its protection.

Although the state Attorney General's Office is well aware that immigration-consultant abuse is widespread, it has not been able to make a case.

Victims have so far been unwilling to come forward as witnesses. Most fear arrest by immigration agents if they attract attention to themselves with a lawsuit, according to Owen Clarke, senior assistant attorney general and the consumer protection attorney in Spokane.

Noyola has not been charged with a crime, but the lawsuit filed in Chelan County has resulted in a judge forbidding her from doing any immigration consulting.

Noyola is fighting the class-action suit. She said she did nothing wrong, that she was helping people who needed her services. She doesn't want to close her business.

"I haven't done anything wrong," Noyola said. "It was because of the clients (that) I opened the business. It was more than I could handle from home. They were telling me I should open a shop."

In Eastern Washington the victims of faulty immigration advice are primarily farm workers, but the problem is not unique to Latinos.

West of the mountains, immigrants -- especially among Asian communities -- also fall prey to bad advice and scams. Across the state, the pattern of abuse is similar to what happened to one 31-year-old Latino man, who may be torn from his family and deported to Mexico.

The man didn't want his name revealed because of pending litigation and his deportation appeal -- a proceeding that was a direct result of the paperwork Noyola filed for him.

On a spring day in 1999, he put away the pruning shears after a day in the orchards and drove to Noyola's office. At that time it was on the other side of the Columbia River in Wenatchee.The buzz among his friends for the past weeks had been the "10-year rule" and a woman in Wenatchee who knew how to use it to get work permits and green cards.

He remembered asking about the rumored program, and he says Noyola assured him: Yes, you can do it, come back with some pay stubs, a rent receipt and $250.

He didn't recall any mention of the risks: how filling out the forms could lead to deportation; how the odds of success were slim; or how, once begun, the process allows for no turning back.

The orchard worker followed Noyola's instructions -- and to his delight a work permit arrived in the mail six months later.

But that joy was short-lived.

A month later, he would go back to Noyola to ask why the Immigration and Naturalization Service told him that he had to be fingerprinted.

But the next summer, the INS notified him that his work permit would not be renewed. A few months later an INS letter ordered him to report to an immigration court in Spokane for a hearing and to bring a lawyer if he thought he might need one.

Panicked, he went back to Noyola, showed her the letter and asked what to do.

Her reply, as he recalls: You might want to get a lawyer.

Now, after spending more than $2,000 on lawyers, he still faces imminent deportation. A legitimate visa application -- sponsored by his father who lives in Eastern Washington and is a U.S. citizen -- is messed up.

Noyola doesn't want to stop offering immigration advice to people like this man. Compared with the translation services she also provides, it brought in the most money. Before 1998, when she took a one-day class in Moses Lake sponsored by the INS, she mainly focused on translating tax forms and other documents.

Assistance with immigration forms and applying for benefits connected to the "10-year-law" soon became her mainstay.

The "10-year-law" is intended to help people already in deportation proceedings. If the deportee has lived in the United States for 10 years and can prove that deportation would cause unusual hardship for their family, he can appeal to the Office of Immigration Review.

Immigration lawyers say proving the family hardship is extremely difficult and that the appeal works only on rare occasions.

Past clients said Noyola told them the 10-year law would be a sure thing. But she disputes that.

"I never mentioned that (they can could get residency)," Noyola said. "We said they could become legalized, but it all depended on what the judge said. I never promised them anything."

By contrast, one prominent Seattle immigration lawyer said he has never recommended volunteering for deportation in his 28-year career.

"From a legal point of view, she should not have done that," her attorney, Rolando Adame, said. "Maybe it was from her heart, maybe it was for financial; I don't know. 'Cause she's actually a very decent person."

From New York to California, federal, state and local officials have issued warnings about immigration consultants.

Pramila Jayapal, executive director of immigrant-advocacy group the Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington, said the problem will remain as long as the government continues to fall down in providing legal assistance, translation services and other support for immigrants.

She said the need for services far outstrips the supply of providers.

"Eighty-five to 90 percent of the people going through the system are doing so pro se (without legal representation)," Jayapal said.

The Northwest Immigrants' Rights Project, headquartered in Seattle, is the only free legal service in the state that handles immigration matters for the poor.

Those who seek out the help of immigration consultants can become victims long before the filing errors are exposed.

"A lot of times they don't know there is a problem until they lose their case," Jayapal said. "At that point they may be months away from deportation -- there's really no accountability."

Matt Adams, a lawyer for the Northwest Immigrants' Rights Project, still gets calls from farm workers who are now tangled in deportation proceedings because of Noyola's filings. In most cases, there is little he or any lawyer can do.

He's keeping close tabs on the class-action suit in Wenatchee, the key to the injunction that continues to keep Noyola out of the business of immigration consulting